Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Kepler Spacecraft Back in Action After Computer Glitch

Artst concept of the Kepler telescope in orbit. Credit: NASA

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NASA’s Kepler spacecraft is back in planet-hunting action after a computer malfunction put it into “safe mode” for 144 hours (six days.) The anomaly occurred on March 14, 2011 immediately after the spacecraft issued a network interface card (NIC) reset command to start a computer program update. During the reset, the NIC sent invalid reaction wheel data to the flight software, which caused the spacecraft to enter the self-protecting safe mode. The NIC is the interfaces between the spacecraft’s flight software, attitude determination, and its control subsystems and sensors. Mission managers said an anomaly response team will continue to evaluate the spacecraft data to determine the cause of the safe mode event.

A safe mode is a measure the spacecraft takes to protect itself when something unexpected occurs. Kepler mission managers described what happens during a safe mode event:

“During safe mode, the spacecraft points the solar panels directly at the sun and begins to slowly rotate along a sun-aligned axis. This safe mode orientation provides the vehicle with the maximum power and limits the buildup of momentum from solar wind. The spacecraft also swapped to its backup subsystem interface box (SIB), an electronics component that provides thermal and power distribution control to all spacecraft subsystems, and powered off the photometer, the instrument used to measure light intensity to detect planets. This is a normal procedure when the spacecraft enters safe mode.”

Kepler spacecraft returned to science data collection at 2:45 p.m. EDT Sunday, March 20, 2011.

Kepler launched in 2009 to look for alien worlds, hoping to find one like Earth in the just-right “Goldilocks Zone” around another star. So far, Kepler has discovered 1,235 possible planets, with 54 of those candidates in that potential habitable zone where liquid water could exist on a planet’s surface. Further study is needed to see if any of these planets have the potential to harbor life.

But given how many potential habitable planets were found in just one area of the sky, astronomers have estimated that our Milky Way galaxy could hold as many as 50 billion alien planets, with 2 billion of those being about the size of Earth.

Stay tuned!

Source: Kepler

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

What Did Gagarin See on His Historic Flight?

50 years ago, April 12th, Yuri Gagarin became the world’s first human to go into space. What did he see? He described it fairly well, but there are limited pictures and no video from his time in orbit. Now, through a unique collaboration between a filmmaker and ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli on board the International Space Station, high definition video of what Gagarin might have seen has been woven together with historic recordings of the flight (subtitled in English) to create a new, free film that will be released on the 50th anniversary titled First Orbit. Above is the trailer for the film. What a perfect way to celebrate this historic moment.

“Circling the Earth in my orbital spaceship I marveled at the beauty of our planet. People of the world, let us safeguard and enhance this beauty — not destroy it!” — Yuri Gagarin.

Continue reading “What Did Gagarin See on His Historic Flight?”

Posted on by Anne Minard

Coolest Brown Dwarf Spotted by Earth-bound Telescopes

Artist's impression of the binary brown dwarf system CFBDSIR 1458+10. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

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Astronomers have found the coldest known star — a brown dwarf in a double system about as hot as a cup of tea. The discovery blurs the line between small cold stars and large hot planets. The star, CFBDSIR 1458+10B, is the dimmer member of the binary system, about 75 light-years from Earth.

Lead study author Michael Liu, from the University of Hawaii’s Institute for Astronomy, said finding ever-cooler stars “has been one of the big themes of this field since it’s existed in the last 15 years.” Brown dwarfs are essentially failed stars; they lack enough mass for gravity to trigger the nuclear reactions that make stars shine. Liu said while the idea of a brown dwarf is many decades old, they were first confirmed in 1995, the same year the first gas giants were detected around other stars.

“Residing at the extremes of low mass, luminosity and temperature, brown dwarfs serve as laboratories for understanding gas-giant extrasolar planets as well as the faint end of the star formation process,” write the authors in the new paper, in the Astrophysical Journal. “The coolest known brown dwarfs, the T dwarfs, have temperatures (~600–1400 K) … that are more akin to Jupiter than any star.”

Liu said cool brown dwarfs are exciting to find partly because they make great proxies for studying the mysteries of water cloud formation in the atmospheres of gas giants. Such clouds are believed to form when temperatures dip below 400 to 450 K.

“We probably will never get as detailed spectra from gas giants around other stars,” he said, “because the planets are gravitationally bound to their stars. It’s very  hard to isolate the light from gas giant.” But brown dwarfs more often occur in isolation.

Three different telescopes were used to study the system: the ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, the Keck II Telescope in Hawaii and the Canada–France–Hawaii Telescope, also in Hawaii. The VLT was used to show that the composite object was very cool by brown dwarf standards.

“We were very excited to see that this object had such a low temperature, but we couldn’t have guessed that it would turn out to be a double system and have an even more interesting, even colder component,” said Philippe Delorme of the Institut de planétologie et d’astrophysique de Grenoble, a co-author of the paper.

CFBDSIR 1458+10 is the name of the binary system. The two components are known as CFBDSIR 1458+10A and CFBDSIR 1458+10B, with the latter the fainter and cooler of the two. They seem to be orbiting each other at a separation of about three times the distance between the Earth and the Sun in a period of about 30 years.

The dimmer of the two dwarfs has now been found to have a temperature of about 100 degrees Celsius, or about 370 K — the boiling point of water, and not much different from the temperature inside a sauna. By comparison the temperature of the surface of the Sun is about 5500 degrees Celsius.

The hunt for cool objects is a very active astronomical hot topic. The Spitzer Space Telescope has recently identified two other very faint objects as other possible contenders for the coolest known brown dwarfs, although their temperatures have not been measured so precisely. Future observations will better determine how these objects compare to CFBDSIR 1458+10B. Liu and his colleagues are planning to observe CFBDSIR 1458+10B again to better determine its properties and to begin mapping the binary’s orbit, which, after about a decade of monitoring, should allow astronomers to determine the binary’s mass.

Source: ESO press release and a brief interview with lead author Michael Liu. See also the paper by Liu et al., “CFBDSIR J1458+1013B: A Very Cold (>T10) Brown Dwarf in a Binary System.“

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Equipment to Study Hayabusa’s Asteroid Samples Damaged in Japan Earthquake

Magnified view of a dust particle in the Hayabusa canister. Credit: JAXA

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The large particle accelerator being used in to analyze the asteroid samples returned by the Hayabusa spacecraft was damaged by the March 11 earthquake in Japan, but the high energy accelerator at the KEK particle-physics laboratory will be repaired, according to this report on a Japanese website. An announcement on the KEK website said that all accelerators and experimental devices were stopped immediately “after the first shake” of the historic earthquake. “We have confirmed the radiation safety, and no hazard to the environment has been reported,” the announcement said. “Also there are no reports of casualties on both Tsukuba and Tokai campuses.” Tsukuba is in the mid-latitudes of Japan, about 50 km from Tokyo.

Apparently, the tiny asteroid particles are safe, but an official at KEK was quoted as saying (via Google Translate) “The accelerator needs to be adjusted very precisely. To suffer this much, but it takes time to recover, want to lose to the earthquake recovery.”

But the repairs to the accelerator may take a back seat to the current situation in Japan. The city of Tsukuba is going to take in refugees from Fukushima prefecture, where the heavily damaged nuclear reactor is located and the KEK facilities will provide support for radiation screening for the refugees upon their arrival.

This photo shows some of the damage to the Tsukuba Space Center in Tsukuba, Japan, the main space center for the country's JAXA agency, from the 8.9-magnitude earthquake that struck on March 11, 2011. Credit: collectSPACE.com

Tsukuba is also home to the space center that oversees Japan’s Kibo laboratory on the International Space Station, as well the JAXA’s unmanned cargo ships that deliver supplies on orbit. The space center was slightly damaged, and for awhile NASA’s Mission Control in Houston took over operations remotely. According to Robert Pearlman on collectSPACE, several of the Japanese flight control team members and flight directors from the Tsukuba Space Center happened to be in Houston when the quake struck, preparing for the Expedition 27 crew rotation, as astronaut Satoshi Furukawa will be heading the ISS in May. However, operations from the mission control rooms were resumed at 4:00 p.m. on March 22, 2011.

JAXA Flight Control Team (JFCT) resuming the Kibo operations at the Mission Control Room (MCR). Credit: JAXA

Another center, the Kakuda Space Center, located in the Miyagi region close to the most serious effects of the earthquake and tsunami, was heavily damaged, and is closed with no timetable for reopening. The Kakuda center is JAXA’s rocket development and testing center and is Japan’s equivalent of the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi.

JAXA’s Tsukuba Space Center located in Tsukuba Science City,

Additionally, the ground-breaking ceremony for a new type of particle smasher known as a “super B factory” in Tsukuba has been postponed. Japan had invested $100 million to transform the KEKB collider in Tsukuba, into a Super KEKB, which will smash electrons into positrons at 40 times the rate of the current accelerator.
Just before the quake, the Japanese Space Agency JAXA had announced they are planning a second Hayabusa mission with an explosive twist. The second mission to an asteroid probe will include an impactor that detonates an explosive on the asteroid’s surface, similar to the Deep Impact mission.

The launch was tentatively planned for launch in 2014, heading to a space rock catalogued as 162173 1999 JU3. The probe would land on the surface and, collect samples before and after the impactor blasts its way to the asteroid’s interior.

Despite the problems Hayabusa encountered along its arduous journey to and from asteroid Itokawa –including thruster, communications, gyro and fuel-leak problems, as well as uncertainty whether the probe landed on the asteroid – JAXA and the Japanese people were buoyed by the success of Hayabusa.

It is not clear how the tragic earthquake and tsunami will affect future space missions for Japan, but obviously the country has more important issues ahead of them. May the spirit of the Japanese people be lifted again.

Sources: NHK,, KEK , collectSPACE, Moon and Back, JAXA

Hat tip to Emily Lakdawalla via Twitter.

Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Experimental Scramjet Aircraft Set for Test Flight

Artists concept of the X-51A Waverider. Credit: US Air Force

The X-51A Waverider hypersonic scramjet project is set for its second test flight today, and the U.S. Air Force hopes it will demonstrate technology that can eventually be used for more efficient transport of payloads into orbit. The craft will be carried to 15,240 meters (50,000 ft.) by a B-52 from Edwards Air Force Base in California, and be dropped over the Pacific Ocean. A booster rocket will fire, getting the Waverider to Mach 4.5; then the scramjet will kick in, and designers hope it will reach Mach 6 or more.

The X-51 Waverider program is a cooperative effort of the Air Force, DARPA, NASA, Boeing and Pratt & Whitney Rocketdyne.

In May 2010, the first test of the vehicle had sort of a “successful” flight of 200 seconds of autonomous flight, which set a duration record for an aircraft powered by a scramjet (short for “supersonic combustion ramjet”) engine. However, it was hoped that the X-51A would fly for as long as 300 seconds (or 5 minutes) and reach Mach 6. But during that flight, the Waverider suddenly lost acceleration, and the vehicle was “terminated” (destroyed – as planned, the Air Force said) while moving at Mach 5. The loss of acceleration was attributed to a design flaw, which led to hot exhaust gas leaking from the engine into electronics bays.

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The scramjet is an air-breathing engine, where intake air blows through its combustion chamber at supersonic speeds. This has been compared to lighting a match in a hurricane, and the concept has had limited success. The engine has no moving parts, and the oxygen needed by the engine to combust is taken from the atmosphere passing through the vehicle, instead of from a tank onboard, making the craft smaller, lighter and faster. Designers say it could reach speeds of anywhere from Mach 12 to Mach 24. Mach 24 is more than 29,000 km/hour (18,000 miles per hour.) This could cut an 18-hour trip to Tokyo from New York City to less than 2 hours.

Sources: NASA, The Register, Spaceports

Posted on by VirtualAstro

Why are Dobsonian Telescopes a Favorite Among Amateur Astronomers?

Dobsonian Telescope
The Meade 16" LightBridge

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Welcome to the scary and expensive world of buying your first, or replacing your old telescope!

I am asked all the time “What telescope should I buy” or “What telescope do I need to see X with?” Nine times out of ten, I recommend a Dobsonian Telescope.

So what is a Dobsonian telescope and why are they so good? Read on to find out why.

A Dobsonian is simplicity in itself; a simple set of optics on a simple mount. But don’t be fooled by this simplicity. Dobsonian telescopes are incredibly good and are great for amateurs and professional astronomers alike. They are also very economical compared to other telescopes.

The optical part of the telescope or OTA (Optical Tube Assembly) is the same as a Newtonian reflector telescope. It consists of a primary parabolic mirror and a flat secondary mirror in an open ended tube, with a focuser for an eyepiece set on the side. Light enters the tube, reflects off of the primary mirror at the base and is then focused onto the smaller flat secondary mirror and then finally, into an eyepiece. Simple!

Credit Skywatcher.net

The benefit of this type of optical arrangement is the telescopes light gathering ability. The more light gathered, equals more fainter objects to be seen. A light bucket!

Dobsonian/Newtonian telescopes have a big advantage over telescopes with lenses such as refractors and Cassegrain telescopes, as mirrors are a lot cheaper to make than lenses. Plus they can be a lot bigger!

Both Dobsonian and Newtonian telescopes are measured by the size of the diameter of their primary (big) mirror. Dobsonian sizes range from starter scopes of 6 inches up to 30 inches, but common sizes are 8 to 16 inches in diameter. They can be many times larger and less expensive to produce than scopes with lenses.

The second part of a Dobsonian telescope is the mount. As with the optical part the mount is just as simple, if not more so! A basic manual mount which supports the optical tube and can be manually moved by hand in the Altitude (up/down) and Azimuth (left/right) axis.

The mount is usually made from wood or metal with bearings and support for the two axis of movement. More so lately, some manufacturers have put GoTo systems with motors on some Dobsonian mounts. Personally I think it’s a bit over kill for a Dobsonian, as finding objects manually by star hopping or other manual methods helps you learn the sky better and can be fun.

Dobsonian

Resist the urge to spend lots of money on small computerized scopes that will eventually never get used, as they can be too complicated or you may not see much through them apart from the brightest objects such as the Moon. A Dobsonian is a great all-around telescope, and are available in almost all telescope stores. Some people make their own homemade Dobsonian scopes too!

Due to the nature of the Alt-Az mount, Dobsonians are not suitable for long exposure astro imaging. For that you will need an equatorial mount, which will track the stars equatorially. You may have some success with webcam imaging with some of the GoTo Mounts though.

Skywatcher 10 inch Dobsonian Credit sherwoods-photo.com

Dobsonian telescopes are designed to be simple, easy to use and gather as much light as possible. Because of this robust simplicity, they are very economical and popular with astronomers of all levels of ability. My own and most favourite telescope is my Skywatcher 10-inch Dobsonian and I will probably be using it for many more years to come, as it is difficult to beat!

The name of the Dobsonian telescope comes from its creator John Dobson, who combined the simple design of the Newtonian telescope with the Alt-Azimuth mount. He originally made simple homemade scopes from household materials and ground mirrors out of the glass of old ship portholes.

John Dobson is the grandfather of Sidewalk Astronomy and co-founder of the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers.

Credit cruxis.com
Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

Winning Space ‘Crafts’ Could Get a Ride on Shuttle

'High Texture Hand Embroidery of the Moon,' by Rachel Barry Hobson, which won the NASA/Etsy craft contest in the 2D Original category. Image courtesy of Rachel Barry Hobson

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If you aren’t yet familiar with Etsy, it is an arts and crafts goldmine where you can find almost anything your heart desires when it comes to handmade art, jewelry, knick-knacks, photography, clothing, quilts, toys and more. Not surprisingly, space exploration and astronomy is an inspiration for many crafters, and NASA and Etsy held a “Space Craft” contest, where contestants entered an original handmade item or work of art inspired by NASA programs, such as the space shuttle, human spaceflight, aeronautics, science and exploration of the universe, and the winners have now been announced.

I was thrilled to see the winner in one category, the 2D Original category, was this beautiful hand-embroidered representation of the Moon (above) – because not only was it my favorite in the entire contest, but I also know the creator, Rachel Barry Hobson. Her winning piece may fly on one of the final space shuttle flights.

I asked Rachel how she felt about winning, and she said, “I am truly humbled. When I created this piece, I worked from a place of pure passion and love for embroidery and space exploration. I love having the opportunity to use this medium to inspire people to fall in love with space, and to be recognized by peers and such a distinguished panel of judges is a huge honor.”

One of the judges was astronaut Steve Robinson.

Grand Prize Winner, Best of Show. Northstar Table by Colleen and Eric Whiteley. Image credit: Etsy

Other winners include Colleen and Eric Whiteley from Brooklyn, NY, who received the Grand Prize for Best of Show for their detailed design of the Northstar Table. The table features a North Star design that, when pressed, opens a hidden drawer.

Winner, 2D Reproduction. Universal Thoughts by Nikkita Karsan Bhakta. Image credit: Etsy

For the category of Two Dimensional Reproduction, “Universal Thoughts” by Nikkita Karsan Bhakta from Mobile, Ala., won the top prize.

Winner, 3D Original. Brother Sun, Sister Moon Ring by Partrick Burt. Image credit: Ets

Patrick Burt from Tempe, Ariz., won the Three Dimensional Original category with a Titanium ring titled “Brother Sun, Sister Moon.” The silver, gold and diamond embedded ring represents stars, the sun, moon, Mercury, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn.

NASA said their goal for the contest was to help inform Etsy’s 5.8 million members about the agency’s present and future exploration plans. There were over 600 pieces entered in the contest.

Rachel said she was inspired to capture the gorgeous textures and geologic attributes of the Moon in hand embroidery, as “the moon has always served as artistic and scientific inspiration for humankind. It’s easily recognizable, and is a comforting, welcome sight in our sky. Its violently beautiful craters remind us what an active place our solar system is. When I observe the Moon through my telescope, I literally get weak in the knees.”

Like many of us, Rachel said when she was young she dreamed of one day flying in space. “My life ended up taking me down a different path, and for a long time I thought there was no way I’d be able to participate in the space program,” she said. “Connecting with a great community of space enthusiasts online and finding a way to use my art to express my passion for space has helped me realize dreams I’d almost given up on. I’m so thankful for both the space “geek” community and craft community supporting my work and the work of so many incredibly talented Space Tweep artists.”

The grand prize team received a $500 shopping spree on Etsy and an all-expense-paid trip with a guest to attend the next shuttle launch at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Shuttle Endeavour and its crew are targeted to lift off on April 19. The winning two dimensional art piece (and pictures of the others) may be flown aboard the flight, or perhaps STS-135.

The winner of each category received a $250 shopping spree on Etsy and a gift package of NASA and Etsy merchandise.

Congrats on to the winners and hats off to NASA and Etsy for recognizing we all have our own unique way of expressing our spaciness!

Posted on by Ken Kremer

Curiosity Rover Testing in Harsh Mars-like Environment

NASA’s Curiosity Rover inside a high vacuum environmental testing chamber at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Engineers placed Curiosity inside the chamber to simulate the surface conditions on Mars that the rover will experience after landing in August 2012. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

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NASA’s next Mars rover, named Curiosity, is now undergoing crucial tests that are designed to simulate the harsh environmental conditions of the Martian surface that awaits the rover when she lands there in August 2012.

Curiosity, also known as the Mars Science Laboratory or MSL, is the size of a mini-Cooper. It was placed inside a 7.6 meter (25 foot) diameter high vacuum chamber at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Engineers are now conducting an extensive regimen of tests that will check out the performance and operational capabilities of the rover under Mars-like conditions.

Curiosity enters the 7.6-meter-diameter space-simulation chamber on March 8, 2011 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. The rover is fully assembled with all primary flight hardware and instruments. The test chamber's door is still open in this photo. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Since the atmosphere of Mars is very thin – roughly 0.6% compared to Earth – most of the air was pumped out to simulate the meager atmospheric pressure on the surface of Mars.

The internal chamber temperature was decreased to minus 130 degrees Celsius (minus 202 degrees Fahrenheit) using liquid nitrogen flowing through the chamber walls to approximate the Antarctic like bone chilling cold. Martian lighting conditions are being simulated by a series of powerful lamps.

Upon successful completion of the testing, all components of the MSL spacecraft system will be shipped to the Kennedy Space Center for final integration. This includes the cruise stage, descent stage and back shell.

The launch window for MSL extends from Nov. 25 to Dec. 18, 2011 atop an Atlas V rocket from pad 41 at Cape Canaveral, Florida.

MSL will land using a new and innovative sky crane system instead of airbags. Using the helicopter-like sky crane permits the delivery of a heavier rover to Mars and with more weight devoted to the science payload. Indeed the weight of Curiosity’s science payload is ten times that of any prior Mars rover mission.

Artist's concept illustrates Mars rover Curiosity traversing across martian surface. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

MSL also features a precision landing system to more accurately guide the rover to the desired target than past missions, to within an ellipse about 20 kilometers long. After extensive evaluation, four landing sites where water once flowed have been selected for further evaluation. The final decision will come sometime in 2011.

Curiosity is about twice the size and four times the weight compared to NASA’s Spirit and Opportunity Mars Explorations Rovers which landed on Mars back in 2004. Opportunity continues to stream back science data from Mars after seven years. The fate of Spirit is unknown at this time as the plucky rover has been out of contact since entering hibernation in March 2010.

The science goal of Curiosity is to search the landing site for clues about whether environmental conditions favorable for microbial life existed in the past or even today on Mars and whether evidence for life may have been preserved in the geological record.

The rover is being targeted to an area where it is believed that liquid water once flowed and may be habitable. In particular the science teams hope to sample and investigate phyllosilicate clays, which are minerals that form in neutral watery conditions more favorable to the formation of life compared to the more acidic environments investigated thus far by Spirit and Opportunity.

Engineers work on the six wheeled Curiosity rover in a clean room at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
Posted on by Nancy Atkinson

JWST Sunscreen Offers SPF 1,000,000

The James Webb Space Telescope will have a sunshield that is about the size of a tennis court, and mission managers say it will offer the best “SPF” (Sun Protection Factor) in the Universe.

“Each of the five layers of the shield is less than half the thickness of a piece of paper,” said John Durning, Deputy Project Manager for JWST. “The five work together to create an effective SPF of 1,000,000.”

This sunshield protects the observatory from unwanted light, keeping it cool and allowing it to detect heat from faraway objects in the universe. So, how do you get something that large into orbit?
Continue reading “JWST Sunscreen Offers SPF 1,000,000”